


The heart is a muscle

by irisdouglasiana



Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, i will not tolerate the injustice done to mary, laszlo is so left-brained it hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 20:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16605320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisdouglasiana/pseuds/irisdouglasiana
Summary: Here, at last, is where she belongs.





	The heart is a muscle

**Author's Note:**

> CW: brief but non-graphic mentions of past child sexual abuse and violence.

“The heart is a muscle, Mary,” the doctor says to her as he carefully turns the pages of his newest acquisition, a second edition of Harvey’s _De Motu Cordis_. “Galen theorized that the heart was a source of heat, and that it passed blood from the left ventricle to the right. In many religions, the heart is considered the spiritual center of the body and the origin of emotions, especially love.” He points to the illustration to show her the path blood takes through the heart: from the vena cava to the right atrium to the right ventricle, from there to the left atrium, from the left atrium to the left ventricle and then out via the aortic valve.

“But now we know that love, like any other emotion, has a physiological basis,” he continues. “Certain chemicals drive feelings of passion and attachment. Therefore, you see it is quite meaningless to speak of a broken heart. I do not say this to diminish what one feels, I only suggest that there are rational ways to understand such things.”

After he leaves for the Institute for the day, she sits down at the table to study the pages and think about what he said. With one hand, she retraces the path he drew for her, right to left. She places the other against her chest to feel her own heart beating strong.

* * *

She doesn’t think much about the past anymore. On good days, she’ll open up all the windows to let in the fresh air and play _Le nozze di Figaro_ on the phonograph while she dusts the furniture, and when she has a little time to spare between cleaning and preparing for dinner she will curl up in her favorite chair in the library and read. In the safety of the doctor’s study, she effortlessly travels from the wildflower-covered hills of the English countryside to the hot Egyptian desert to the jungles of Brazil and back. Sometimes Cyrus will pick up a bouquet for her while out on his errands, and she will take her time carefully arranging the stems so they are just right for when the doctor comes home. When they begin to wilt she will take the best one and press it so she can tape it into her scrapbook. She has filled three books already—cherry blossoms and ferns, roses and carnations; small beautiful things that bring joy. This is what she wants to remember.

The doctor’s household staff have an unspoken agreement to never discuss their previous lives. It is simply better that way. Mary’s past is broken bottles and the shouts of drunken men and holes punched in rotting tenement walls; a stained mattress and the stench of burning hair. Stevie and Cyrus share bits and pieces of themselves in cautious euphemisms— _back when I lived upstate_ … _when my sister was still alive_ … _before I was sent to the Institute_ …

The doctor, however, operates under different rules. He has no obligation to respect their pact, not when he has a question to answer or a hypothesis to prove. “I wonder if you agree with my theory as to why you killed your father,” he muses one evening as Mary serves him his dinner. He came home in a bad mood, perhaps from dealing with some problem over at the Institute, and when that happens he will sometimes ambush those around him in this manner.

She freezes up for a moment, spoon in hand, and turns to glare at him. She imagines him telling the story of her life to his curious colleagues and friends, transforming her into an anecdote, a case study, a footnote in a journal.  

He sits back, seemingly satisfied to have provoked a reaction from her. “I find it a worthwhile exercise to periodically reexamine my past work, so I may improve my methods for the future. So tell me—was I correct?”  

On the witness stand at her trial, he had gone into great detail about the natural physiological reaction of animals to threats; how the nervous system releases chemicals that spur an animal to flee or respond with aggression. She acted on impulse, but an understandable one in this terrible situation. He was wrong, but no matter; the jury was quickly persuaded.

Without taking her eyes off him, Mary finishes the task of spooning carrots onto his plate and marches back to the kitchen. She throws the spoon down so hard it bounces and nearly hits Cyrus as he walks through the door. He bends down and picks it up. “You too, huh?” he says, shaking his head. “Don’t take it too hard. The doctor is a good man, but sometimes…”

Later, while she is washing the dishes, she hears the doctor’s footsteps behind her, slow and hesitant. She glances over her shoulder at him and then returns her focus to her work. Eventually he walks away without a word.

Let him keep his theories and she will keep the truth. The truth is that she killed her father because she wanted to make him suffer as he had made her suffer. She had imagined it a thousand times over. In those days, she saw no future for herself and didn’t care if she hanged, so she hadn’t been afraid when she lit the match. And she felt powerful. She felt _good_.

* * *

“Mary, you look unwell.” Dr. Kreizler’s voice is filled with concern as he reaches out and puts his palm against her cheek. “You have a fever.”

She shakes her head and unsuccessfully tries to stifle a cough. She has felt completely wretched for the past day. Unable to work up an appetite for more than a few bites of bread, she nearly fainted while washing the dishes. He found her bent over the sink with her hands flat on the counter and her legs shaking.

“You must rest,” he says more firmly, taking her by the wrist and leading her into her bedroom. She sinks down gratefully onto her bed and waits until he returns with a cloth and a basin of water. “Lie back,” he instructs. He carefully drapes the damp cloth across her forehead and she lets out a silent sigh of relief.

“Your body fights infection by increasing its temperature,” he explains. “It should return to homeostasis in a few days, but in the meantime, I want you to remain here.” He must see the skepticism in her expression, because he smiles. “I assure you, Cyrus, Stevie, and I are capable of surviving on our own for a short period of time.”

It turns out that being ill is not so terrible after all, not with the doctor fussing over her as he does. He brings her soup and watches to make sure that she eats it. He brings down books from his library and reads to her. It isn’t necessary for him to do so, but she likes his presence beside her bed and the sound of his voice.

At a certain point, she realizes she hasn’t paid any attention whatsoever to what he is reading; she has just been staring at him and admiring the shape of his shoulders and the curve of his jaw. How had she not noticed before how handsome he is? The thought occurs to her that perhaps it is not the fever that is making her face so warm. _Oh dear._

“Have I tired you?” the doctor asks, breaking her from her reverie. He starts to set the book down. “I should let you sleep.”

She shakes her head emphatically and points to the book. He raises his eyebrows. “Well, then. One more chapter?”

* * *

The cold weather is bothering him. The doctor doesn’t complain, of course, but she sees it in the tight set of his mouth and the stiffness of his bad arm when she helps him out of his coat. She will have to put another log on the fire, perhaps heat up a water bottle for his bed. His house is very comfortable, but it still gets drafty in winter, and this year has been worse than usual.

She follows him to the parlor. He settles into his chair with a sigh, tilting his head back and closing his eyes, his arm pulled in close to his body. She kneels down to take off his boots.

“My father did this to me,” he says absently, gazing off into the distance. Between the two of them, they could write a whole sordid book: _My Father Did This to Me_. Mary pauses, raises her eyes to meet his, and then lowers them and continues working diligently at the buttons. He doesn’t say anything else about it and she won’t press. If he were interrogating himself, he would never leave it at that; he asks questions with the precision of a surgeon peeling flesh from muscle and muscle from bone. He would take himself to pieces.

(What did your father do to you? Tell me the details; leave nothing out. Are you still angry with him after all these years? Did it affect your ability to trust? Is this the reason why you sabotage your relationships? Did you become an alienist because you wanted to understand your own mind better, or so you could learn how to deflect your pain by questioning others? Are you ashamed to look at your body in the mirror?)

She finishes with his boots and sets them aside. She senses him carefully formulating the question in his mind. When he finally asks, his voice comes out quietly and without arrogance. “Do you ever regret what you did to your father?”

She folds her hands together, nails biting into her skin, and slowly rises to her feet without taking her eyes off him. She is twenty-two and has been living under his roof for seven years now. He does not understand her as well as he thinks he does if he needs to ask this. The doctor may be able to see through others, but not himself, and not her. 

Mary is certain that her father never felt a trace of guilt. He went through life wholly untroubled by such things, whistling in the dark after he did what he did to her. Her hands shook when she lit the match, but not because she harbored any doubts—in that way, perhaps, they were alike. He died screaming.

She shakes her head, and he nods thoughtfully. “Thank you, Mary,” is all he has to say to that.

* * *

She can’t quite pinpoint when things change between them, she just knows that something is different now. She will be setting the table and notice him staring at her hands, or when she’s trimming his beard, he will open his eyes and gaze up at her. When the light is just so, his eyes have a hint of green. She wonders what he sees in her. She wonders what he is looking for.

* * *

Upstairs in his room, he carefully removes the pins from her hair one by one, letting it fall in loose waves down her shoulders. She has spent close to half her life with him and she knows he is thoughtful and kind and stubborn and infuriating. She had not realized he was capable of such tenderness. Not like this.

She has been waiting for this moment for so long, but now she finds no need to hurry. So she takes her time undressing him, letting her hands linger on his bare shoulders and chest while he works methodically at the buttons on her dress with his good hand. When she steps out of her clothes and stands naked before him, he lets out a long, shuddering breath. He brushes his fingers along her face and gazes at her as though she is the most precious thing in the world.    

Then, finally, she closes the space between them. They are clumsy and awkward and neither of them really knows what to do, but in the end it doesn’t matter. He is everything he needs to be, wonderful in his imperfections, and if he can’t see that then she will show him until he believes it too. Because when he had found her, she had been a fourteen-year-old girl consumed with rage, her knees scabbed and her hair falling out in clumps, and he had looked her in the eye and seen someone of value, someone worthy of love. So she loved him in return. She would always love him for that.

Afterwards, she rests her head on his chest while he idly strokes her hair, still damp with sweat. Her hand traces slow circles around his bare hip. She burrows herself into his arms and smiles.

Here, at last, is where she belongs.

* * *

It all happens so quickly that nobody has time to think. The strange men in the parlor looking for the doctor—the sneers and innuendo—she grabs the knife and follows the man up the stairs, her fear turning to rage—she sees his shadow and then—

* * *

Mary drifts. Mary dreams.

 

 

_A memory: a cold, damp cell, the stench of vomit and blood, and the man standing in the doorway. She is fourteen years old. There is a spoon tucked up her sleeve; she had stolen it in the first week since her arrest and spent her time patiently sharpening the handle into a point. As the man steps inside and the door closes behind him, she lets the spoon slide down a few inches and hides it in her the palm of her hand._

_“My name is Dr. Kreizler,” the man says softly. His eyes flick down to the sharpened point in her hand and then back up, but he neither moves away nor makes any motion to wrest it from her grasp—a good thing for both their sakes, because in those days she would have stabbed any man who put hands on her._

_“Mary, I want you to do something for me. I want you to breathe.” He places his hand below his ribcage to demonstrate. After a pause, she copies his movement with her left hand while keeping her grip on the spoon in her right. “This is the location of the thoracic diaphragm—the muscle that assists in respiration. When you inhale, the muscle contracts and allows the lungs to expand. When you exhale, the diaphragm relaxes. Try it with me.” He inhales and then exhales deeply. She does the same, and as she lets out a long breath she feels some of the tenseness go out of her body._

_“See? That is all you have to do.” The doctor smiles. “Just breathe, Mary.”_

 

 

_A vision: she is walking along the beach under a dazzling blue sky. The wet sand squishes between her toes and the waves rush in around her ankles. She shivers with pleasure at the coldness and admires how the sun bounces off the grains of sand floating in the water, gleaming like gold._

_A flicker of light catches her eye, and she turns her head towards the beach to see the harsh white light of the projector beaming at her. Her feet carry her towards it and she passes through the screen and into the theater where John Moore took her to see the Vitascope. The waves crash soundlessly against the screen with no orchestra to accompany them. No audience gasps in surprise or cries out in fear. She touches the rough canvas and observes the flickering light bounce between her fingers—_ watch out, you’re all about to get wet. _But the waves are only an illusion, a trick. A play of light and shadow._

_She draws her hand away, trembling. A shadow. She had seen the shadow of a man coming around the corner, and he had…she had…_

_Terror rushes through her, followed by overwhelming fury. She grips the canvas in her hands and pulls the entire screen down with a sharp jerk and the show comes to an abrupt end. Behind the screen there is only darkness. Everything is gone. Her face is wet with tears._

 

 

_A story: there was a woman who fell from the sky in the days before the world was fully formed. No one knows if she tripped or if someone pushed her or if she jumped, but the birds flew up to catch her and they lowered her gently onto the back of a giant turtle. The turtle became the land and the seeds she dropped became the trees and the flowers. Later, she died giving birth to twin boys, one good and one evil. But do not mourn for her, because in death she became life. Her body turned to earth, and from earth, everything else is born._

* * *

Mary breathes.

Her entire body hurts when she wakes in the hospital. Even the bright light hurts and causes tears to spring to her eyes. It takes her a moment to realize the doctor—to realize that _Laszlo_ is slumped over in the chair beside her, fast asleep, with his hand loosely clasped around hers. She doesn’t wish to wake him—he hardly sleeps enough as it is when he’s in the middle of a case—but her movement causes him to stir. He yawns and blinks at her, and then his eyes go wide.   

“Oh, thank God,” he exclaims, sitting up and letting go of her hand. He looks like a mess. His hair is in disarray, his beard is untrimmed, and his shirt is wrinkled, and she has a sudden urge to march him home and force him to eat and bathe. “We feared the worst,” he says hoarsely, then swallows and collects himself. “You were unconscious for two days. My actions placed you in grave danger, and there is no excuse for that. Please accept my sincerest apologies. If you never want to see me again, I fully understand.”

She frowns and shakes her head, though even that small motion sends waves of pain through her skull. This dear, sweet, foolish man; how could he even think that?

“Mary, I have been thinking…” he begins again, and then stops. For a moment, she is afraid he will tell her he is sending her away for her own good. He drags his hand through his hair and lowers his head as though he is about to cry. She doesn’t want him to be sad, so with effort she raises her arm, kisses the tips of her fingers, and presses them against his lips.

He covers her hand with his and lets out a little laugh. She can feel the heat of his breath, the coarseness of his beard. “What I wish to say is—what I should have said a long time ago—Mary, if you would have me, I am and will always be faithfully and entirely yours.”

Now both of them are blinking back tears. The answer must be written all over her face, because he bends down to kiss her and then kisses her some more. Already the pain in her head is forgotten and her mind is racing ahead to tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, to the future she had barely dared dream of. And maybe it won’t be perfect and maybe everything won’t go as planned, but she’ll take whatever life brings her; she’ll take it and she’ll keep it anyway.  

The heart is just a muscle, he had told her, and love a mere chemical response. In one sense perhaps this is true, yet at the same time he is profoundly mistaken, for love is not an emotion to be felt but an act, a commitment, a choice. Mary places her hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat. She closes her eyes and concentrates. If she listens closely, she can hear their hearts beating together in time.

**Author's Note:**

> The story about the woman falling from the sky is based on the Haudenosaunee creation story. I drew from two different versions: see http://www.oneidaindiannation.com/the-haudenosaunee-creation-story/ and http://www.mbq-tmt.org/assets/Wellbeing/FamHealthChildDev/HBHCnews-creationthestory.pdf.
> 
> I don't know if the book addresses this character's heritage (I've only seen the TV show) but I thought it was important to acknowledge in some way.


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